Modeling Baseball Player Ability with a Nested Dirichlet Distribution

Abstract

Abstract In this paper we introduce the nested Dirichlet probability distribution and propose a method of using it to model Major League Baseball (MLB) player abilities. To do so, we define fourteen distinct outcome types for any typical plate appearance (excluding intentional walks and bunt attempts), and we assume that every player has an underlying fourteen dimensional ability vector, x, where each element represents the probability that ...